It's not what you think

These are the words my 7-year-old says last week to our three dinner guests. Guests we didn't know all that well, though at the time, I'm sure they felt they knew more than they ever wanted to know about me.

Once I wiped up the soup that had just spewed out of my mouth, I said the words that have become a regular disclaimer for the adults worldwide who dare to have kids, “It's not what you think.”

I don't want to know what that made them think. Or you. So in a nutshell … in high school, I went out with a guy who contracted a highly communicable case of spinal meningitis. His doctor advised me to take a horse pill of an antibiotic – one so strong that later, my neurologist sourced as the trigger for my neuropathy. See? No big deal. Oh, the mouths of babes.

A Cheesecake Factory waitress recently got her daily gasp from my youngest. After asking for our drink orders, my first-grader casually replied, “I'll have milk – but with no alcohol.” I watched the server's eyebrows raise to her hairline, then dug into the explanation we'd been giving since returning from a trip to Mexico a month earlier. “We stayed at an all-inclusive, where they ordered Bahama Mamas all day long, and they got used to hearing us say, ‘but with no alcohol.'”

My 13-year-old has since taken it upon herself to try to embarrass us while ordering. When a server appears, casually she'll glance at the menu and say, “I'll have a white zinfandel.” Basically, we've stopped eating out.

One of the many blessings and challenges of child rearing is how the little darlings expose our “best” selves to the world. I take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone.

My cousin's fourth-grader earned her the Mother of the Year badge when he opened up the lunch she packed him for school and pulled out a can of beer. To her credit, my cousin is legally blind. Her husband has agreed to keep his beer in a separate drawer than the root beer.

Another friend says her child regularly identifies passers-by as the cartoon character they most resemble: “Ooh, she looks like Cruella De Vil!” “Look mom, it's Squidward!”

And what parent hasn't had their kid cry out, “Is that a man or a woman?” or “Ooooowww! You're hurting me!” in the checkout line? Just for fun.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, “Having children is like getting a tattoo – on your face. You'd better be committed.” She never had children.

Often after I return from taking my kids out to public places, the idea of having a tattoo on my face does seem easier. But then, surely everyone else's kids would comment on it.

Autumn McAlpin lives in San Clemente with her husband and four kids. She is the author of “Real World 101: A Survival Guide to Life After High School” and writes weekly family film reviews for the Sun Post News and the Register.

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